Skies Painted with Unnumbered Sparks

Author: Shei Bushaava

Original post:

Entry for the YC116 Pod and Planet Fiction Contest in the Eight Thousand Suns in New Eden category.

A shudder ran through the hull of the transport ship as it dropped out of warp. The men and women sitting in the cramped personnel bay felt it rattle down their backbones, while the subtle change in gravity pulled them violently sideways into their neighbours. The stale odour of long-distance travel in too-close quarters hung in the air.

Broad settled himself back into his unyielding synthetic seat and glanced at the man next to him to offer an apology, but the other man kept his gaze firmly locked on the opposite wall, his mouth set in a hard sneer. Broad tried anyway.

“Sorry, friend.”

The man didn’t even move his head. “I ain’t your friend. But if you touch me again, I will end you.”

Broad’s eyes widened in surprise before anger took over. “Hey, I don’t know you, but — ”

“But I know you,” the man cut him off. He turned to face Broad; one eye was white and sightless, a deep scar running out of the man’s close-cropped hair and down across his eye and cheek. His neck was thick and stubbled, and the one working eye radiated hatred. His breath was hot and sour on Broad’s face. “We all know who you are, and you ain’t welcome. You might have been something when B2 Corp. was running these gates, but those days are over. You ain’t shit now. This here is an MCS Corp. system, and an MCS Corp. gate — and you’re in an MCS Corp. crew now. And in MCS? You … ain’t … shit.”

Having spoken his piece, the white-eyed man turned back to face the wall. Broad glanced around. Several of the surrounding passengers had evidently been listening to the exchange; as they caught his eye, each favoured him with a sneer, or met his gaze with open hostility. One man spat, the dark liquid landing on the toe of Broad’s boot. Broad turned his attention to the window at the end of the bay and the view beyond.

The star gate they were approaching was one of the original Amarrian designs, a gargantuan gold ring suspended in space. On two sides, immense gold blades housed the complex machinery used to manipulate the gravitational fields that intersected here. As Broad watched, flickering beams of raw energy coalesced in the centre of the ring, forming a ball hundreds of meters across: the gravitational distortion field. In an instant, the ball collapsed in on itself, and, where it had been, a wormhole appeared. The transport ship creaked, the magnetic field pulling at it even from this distance. A blinding flash filled the viewport; when Broad’s vision had cleared, the wormhole was gone, and in its place sat a handful of ships. He had time to pick out a Harpy-class assault frigate among them before the small gang warped away from the gate towards one of the distant planets.

“Pirate hunters,” said a nasal voice on his other side.

Broad turned to see a man around his own age, but where he was stocky, well-muscled and bald this man was a picture of self-neglect; lank, greasy dreadlocks rested on narrow shoulders, and his hollow cheeks and pale pallor gave him an air of desperation. He was dressed in the same technician’s uniform they all wore, yet somehow he managed to appear far dirtier than the men and women around him.

“Is that right?” said Broad.

To his surprise, the man leaned in towards him, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial mutter. Broad fought back an impulse to lean away.

“We need to stick together, you and me,” whispered the man. “It ain’t gonna be like the old days.”

“Old days?” asked Broad, lowering his own voice.

“Yeah, man, you know — when this was all B2. I was here too — Chane, my name’s Chane. I seen you around, I know what you done for them, who you were. You got nothing to be ashamed of, taking this job. Shit, where else we gonna go, right? What else can we do? But, you know, you and me, we got to look out for each other.” His look became more desperate and he leaned even closer. “You got my back, right? I mean — they gonna respect you, what you done, who you been. Right? That’s gotta count for something.”

Broad leaned back into the hard curves of his seat and shook his head slowly. “I can’t help you, brother. Right here and now? I ain’t shit.”

He closed his eyes as the transport’s thrusters roared and the ship began its descent towards the star gate and his new home.

“How long now?”

Biting back an insult, Broad turned to look at the man who had spoken. His three-man crew were engaged in replacing panels throughout the habitation quarters of the star gate; it was grunt work, but he had expected little else. At least he had been put in charge of his own crew, although the men he had been provided left a great deal to be desired. He turned and favoured the one who had spoken with a glare.

“Spalding, if you ask me one more time how long until shift end, I’m going to jam your tools up your ass,” he said.

The podgy little man smoothed what remained of his greasy hair across his scalp and held out a placating hand, “H-hey, Broad, no need to go threatening me now, hey?”

“Just do your work,” said Broad. He turned away and reattached the final panel to the wall, the seams vanishing as the magnetised tritanium sheet slotted neatly into place. Bending down to pick up his tools, Broad shook his head. Sometimes life really loved to kick you in the teeth.

When the transport ship had disgorged its tired and dirty cargo onto the docking bay gantry, and the departing crew had filed past amid the usual cries of sarcastic advice on how they should spend their three years’ worth of pay (exotic dancers and liquor seemed to be the consensus), the new crew had been greeted by the local corporation manager. By the look the woman favoured him with, Broad knew his reputation had preceded him, and the work detail assignments thus far had only confirmed his suspicions. MCS was out to punish him, a convenient proxy for his previous employer; he soon realised that no matter how hard he worked here, he was never going to gain anyone’s trust, and certainly was never going to rise above his new, lowly station.

Although he tried to keep to himself within the star gate’s extensive personnel areas, he had quickly grown used to the elbows and shoulders aimed his way in the mess hall, and soon learned the alternative routes through the maze of hallways when the drink was flowing and the sound of the MCS corporate anthem echoed through the corridors. The last time there had been singing, Chane had appeared at breakfast the next morning missing three teeth and nursing a broken hand. He ate alone in one corner of the mess now, flinching if anyone came too close.

Broad turned his attention back to his sorry little crew, who were now standing around waiting for his instructions. Suddenly he hated the sight of them.

“Okay, get out of here; we’re not going to get anything else done today.”

As they strolled away, he called after them, “Tomorrow we’re outside, so don’t forget to suit up.” Neither of the men acknowledged him.

The landing gantry was empty as Broad strode down the dimly lit concourse, his tool bag swinging from one hand. It wasn’t the fastest route back to his quarters, but it was one of the routes where he was least likely to encounter trouble. Through the thickened glass window that stretched the length of the corridor, he could see the opposite arm of the star gate, impossibly far away beyond the gaping space where the gravity field would form, transporting ships over unimaginable distances in the blink of an eye. Although the star system they serviced was relatively quiet, Broad had already become used to the warning klaxon that would sound whenever the gate was active, and the queer pulling on his insides that happened whenever the enormous singularity formed outside, the heavy shielding insufficient to completely neutralise the additional gravimetric influence.

He had almost reached the end of the corridor when he was hailed from behind.

“You! Drop the bag and turn around slowly.”

The authority in the man’s voice told Broad that he should obey. Holding his hands out, palms open, he turned to face the speaker.

A hundred or more feet away, next to a gantry ladder, stood a blonde man of medium height, wearing the unmistakable uniform of a CONCORD officer. His right hand hovered over the pistol strapped to his thigh. Broad saw that the holster was already unfastened.

“What do you want to stop me for?” he said. “I haven’t done nothing.”

“I’ll decide what you have or haven’t done,” said the CONCORD officer, but he seemed to relax a little, his hand moving away from the gun. Moving a few steps closer to Broad, he squinted a little, then said, “I know you. I know your face; you ran that B2 crew in — where the hell was it — Barleguet or someplace out that way.”

“Maybe I did,” said Broad cautiously. As the man seemed to have decided he was no threat, he bent down and picked up his tools. “And now I’m here. So if you’re not gonna shoot me, do you mind if I go eat?”

The mention of Barleguet brought back a tumult of memories. The lower security in that region had meant that the local star gates became hubs for a variety of nefarious activities too risky to engage in aboard a space station; despite the occasional snap inspection by the Commerce Assessment wing of CONCORD, smuggling had been rife, and Broad’s position as a trusted lieutenant within B2 had helped to ensure a steady stream of ISK into his pockets. He almost grinned as he remembered how his crew had taunted the officials, always one step ahead of them in the game of cat and mouse they played across the region. He looked more closely at the man in uniform standing in front of him.

“I remember you. Did you boys ever find those boosters?” he said, almost but not quite keeping the smirk from his lips.

The officer seemed to take the jab in good spirits. “Another couple of hours we would have been on it. I knew that was you, but burden of proof, you know how it is. What are you doing way the hell out here?”

Broad shrugged. “B2 is gone now. You gotta be where the work is.”

“I hear that,” said the CONCORD man, “that’s why I’m here. We got a tip that MCS might be working some new angle out here — don’t suppose you’d know anything about that, would you?”

Broad shrugged again. Although he hadn’t made it his business to get involved in whatever extra-curricular activity was going on at the gate, he had noticed enough of the tell-tale signs — furtive looks, urgent whispered discussions during meals — that he could tell something was going on, but he wasn’t about to turn informant just to curry favor with CONCORD.

“I thought so. Well, if you ever feel like making a little extra money on the side, I’ll pay for decent information.” The officer closed the gap between them, reached into his breast pocket for a card. “Officer East.”

Broad accepted the card, pretended to read it as the officer walked away. As soon as he was out of sight, Broad flicked the card over the railing and watched it lazily circle down into the loading bay below. Shaking his head, he turned to go.

“Asshole,” he muttered.

The noise began almost as soon as the lights had gone out for the night. At first just a whooping, echoing around the far end of the sleeping quarters, but gradually the noise built and drew closer to where Broad lay awake in his cot. As nearer voices took up the call, individual words began to be distinguishable amongst the cacophony.

“Snitch!”

“Rat!”

“Corder!”

That last insult, the name for anyone suspected of cooperating with CONCORD, merely confirmed what Broad already suspected. Somehow he had been seen talking to the CONCORD officer, and the crew had drawn the obvious conclusion.

Something light but hard cracked against his cabin door. Two more sharp cracks followed before something heavier thudded against the door. “Come on out, snitch! Let us see your rat face!” The door was sealed from the inside, although anyone with sufficient authority could override the lock from without. Broad hoped there were no officers present — if there were, he was dead.

“Hey, rat, we got your little friend out here!”

Broad sat up in his narrow bed. He knew exactly who the next voice would be.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Chane’s wheedling cry came through the door. “I don’t know him, we’re not friends. I — ”

His protests were cut off by a high-pitched scream. Another thump on the outside of the door accompanied by a grunt; they had thrown him at the door. In the darkness, Broad sat and listened to the sound of muffled blows falling. Throughout it all, Chane never made a sound.

Through his tinted visor, Broad watched as the other two members of his work detail manoeuvred the armour plate into place above the dented and scraped area they had been assigned to repair. Their breathing and muttered curses filled his helmet until he thumbed the control panel on the back of one gloved hand; with communications muted, only his own breathing, deep and long, reached his ears. Closing his eyes for a moment, he felt peaceful for the first time in weeks.

Whenever workers needed to make any external repairs, the star gate was disabled to traffic; the intense gravity field generated by the temporal singularity, needed to transport immense ships across space, would have turned them all inside out in a micro-second. Despite the remoteness of the system, there were often ships waiting for the gate to re-open.

When Broad opened his eyes, movement beyond the golden rim of the gate caught his eye. Squinting, he could just about make out a pair of Iteron-class industrial haulers, floating motionless in space a few kilometres from the gate as they waited for it to come back online. Switching his comms back on, Broad tugged on the lifeline linking him to the other members of his team to get their attention, before nodding in the direction of the ships.

“Hurry it up,” he said, speaking over their exclamations of anger. “Much more of a queue and there’ll be trouble from the bosses.”

They knew he was right, but they still hated him for it, he reflected as he watched the men bend to their task. He wondered whether they would come for him again tonight, and how much longer he would be able to ignore the contempt from the rest of the crew.

The new plate sealed firmly in place, they turned and began the slow, bouncing walk towards the airlock. Broad, bringing up the rear, turned for a last look at the ships, glittering in the reflected light from the distant dual stars, but as he watched he heard the tell-tale whump-whump of ships leaving warp. Suddenly, where there had been two ships, there were now four; a pair of Harpy-class assault frigates had joined the Iterons, and instantly began a tight, fast orbit around the nearest of the industrials. Broad didn’t need to recognise the black slashes across the frigates’ wings to know these were pirates. Protocol dictated that he head inside (and watch from the safety of the observation deck) — you could never be sure you weren’t going to catch a stray round from a railgun — but something kept him there on the outside of the airlock, one hand on the safety rail, the other shielding his eyes as he watched the fight unfold far above.

Tiny pinpricks of light winked into existence around each of the cumbersome freighters as their pilots launched a handful of combat drones, each one making a bee-line for one of the frigates. Although the frigates’ wing-mounted railguns despatched several of the drones, the combined firepower of the tiny aerial robots was enough to send one Harpy spiralling out of control, smoke pluming from a rent in the body of the craft. The pilot, evidently believing the destruction of his craft was imminent, ejected into space inside his sleek egg-shaped capsule, and, as the remaining drones turned their attention to the other frigate, both the capsule and the remaining Harpy warped away towards the bright centre of the solar system.

Over the still-open comms channel, Broad could hear the distorted cheering of his work detail amongst other voices; they were evidently watching from the observation deck, along with the rest of the maintenance crews. It wasn’t every day that they were lucky enough to see actual combat around the gate, and even less likely that they saw capsuleers in action, even if they were pirates.

The two Iteron pilots had evidently decided that waiting for the star gate to come back online was not the safest place to stay, and once their remaining drones were recalled, they slowly aligned away from the gate and lumbered into warp. And then all that was left was the crippled Harpy.

Broad wasn’t aware of having decided to let go of the safety rail until he was already in motion, floating away from the inner surface of the star gate and towards the ship. Inside his gloves, his hands were suddenly slick with sweat. Before the safety line went taut, pulling him back to the surface, he reached behind with one hand and unhooked it from where it connected to his belt. Now he was truly in the hands of the gods. He glanced ahead. If he was lucky, his trajectory would take him clear across the gulf at the center of the star gate and he would hit the other side. If he was unlucky, he would float past the gate and on, into the darkness forever.

Except for the ship. It still drifted, slower now, down towards him, its sleek nose and darkened canopy facing him like a sternly welcoming face. Less than five hundred meters away. Broad stretched out his arms. Two hundred meters. One hundred.

His left leg hit the ship first, spinning him head-over-heels across the smooth surface of the craft’s nose like a demented acrobat. Through his visor, the ship and gate swung wildly in and out of sight, the twin suns painting jagged patterns across his retinas. As he tumbled past the edge of the wing, one flailing hand caught hold of the barrel of the railgun turret and arrested his motion, sending his body slamming into the black painted surface of the wing.

Fighting for breath, Broad stared wildly for a moment at the hulking gun turret beside him, then started to haul himself hand over hand, towards the airlock in the side of the hull.

His hand was on the door panel when an imperious voice rang out inside his helmet, amplified well beyond the normal level.

“Engineer.”

He knew that voice, heard it on the loudspeakers and corporate bulletin announcements almost every day since he had arrived. But this was the first time it was addressing him directly.

“Engineer,” said corporation president Janck Hekard, “what do you think you are doing?”

The gate bosses had to have raised him over subspace communication once they saw what he was doing. There was no way the president of the corporation just happened to be on-board their star gate. But the voice was clear and free of subspace static, almost as if he was speaking over Broad’s shoulder. Broad fought an urge to turn around and look behind him.

“I am disappointed, engineer,” said Hekard, when he realised Broad was not going to answer. “This is not the behaviour we expect from someone with a record such as yours. I must ask you to stop.”

Broad pulled the heavy airlock shut behind him and keyed the pad to seal it closed. Within the ship, cabin pressure had been lost, and the dim blue light indicating a hull breach illuminated the narrow corridor that led up a gentle slope towards the pilot’s cabin.

“CONCORD have been alerted to the presence of pirates in the vicinity of our gate, engineer. They are on their way as we speak. They will not approve of your actions. You put yourself in considerable danger.”

In the small cabin, Broad moved gingerly around the depression in the floor where the capsuleer’s pod had rested. Bundles of cables hung from the ceiling above it, their ends twisting gently in zero gravity. A colourless goo dribbled from the ends of the cables, mute testament to their purpose: the interface between the bio-engineered pilot and his ship. Moving the cables aside, heedless of the pod slime adhering to his gloves, Broad followed the path of the cables across the ceiling and down to a control panel mounted just below the window. Here, a set of manual controls, useless to a capsuleer, were mounted, allowing maintenance crews to operate the ship. Broad cast a practiced eye across the console; it seemed that aside from the lack of breathable air on board, the ship had survived the hole in its side relatively unscathed.

“I warn you, engineer,” Hekard said, “if you touch those controls, the MCS Corporation will, under the terms of your contract, consider it an act of aggression.” His voice changed, became colder, “Do not for a second think that you are in control here.”

Again Broad heard the soft pop-pop of ships leaving warp. A moment later, the panel readout told him what he could already see through the cockpit window — two more assault frigates, both marked with the same pirate insignia.

They had come back for their ship.

He thumbed the controls to bring the guns online, and nudged the control stick to align the ship more directly with the new arrivals. He wasn’t going without a fight. Then a new voice came over the comms channel.

“Hey, Broad, you better run, man,” said Chane.

“I’m not running nowhere.”

“Broad, are you crazy?” The nasal whine in Chane’s voice went up in pitch. Broad could almost picture him, crouching somewhere out of sight, watching the fight through an isolated window, forever hiding.

That wasn’t going to be him.

“Get on with it, motherfuckers,” he muttered, as he watched the other two ships slowly approach. They had moved away from each other and approached at an angle, a pincer movement with Broad at the center. He fired off a few rounds from the guns, first at one ship and then the other, although he knew they were still hopelessly out of range.

“Broad, come on, man,” wheedled Chane one last time. Broad ignored him.

“I’m right here!” he yelled, slapping the comms channel fully open, broadcasting on all local frequencies. His helmet was suddenly full of the sound of shouted abuse, laughter, cheering. And over it all, the calm, even tones of the company man, Hekard.

“Final warning, Mr Broadus.”

Suddenly Broad understood. Pirates or corporations, it didn’t really matter. At some point, they become interchangeable, and, once that happens, it really doesn’t matter who you work for.

“Goodbye, Mr Broadus.”

Or who you work with.

Behind the crippled Harpy, out of sight of the cabin window, the dark bulk of a Manticore-class covert operations frigate rippled as it uncloaked from where it had hung, hidden, throughout the entire engagement. Thrusters fired on its left wing, spinning it neatly in place until it faced the damaged ship and its rebel passenger. The Manticore seemed to rock backwards momentarily as a single torpedo burst from its launcher and crossed the gap to the Harpy faster than any eye could follow.

A flash. The Harpy was gone. Nothing remained but floating wreckage.

CONCORD officer East drummed his fingers on the leather holster strap impatiently. He stood on the gantry above the docking bay, waiting for a man he had been told would be there.

Finally the man, exactly as he had been described — unkempt, malnourished, recently beaten — shambled into view around the corner of the corridor below. East moved to cut him off, timing his descent from the gantry so that the two men arrived at the door simultaneously.

“You. Turn around slowly.”

Chane did as he was ordered.

East didn’t bother drawing his weapon, he could tell this man was no threat to him. Chane’s entire demeanour dripped submission, his hangdog look emphasised by the fresh cuts and bruises across one cheek and the bridge of his nose. East moved closer and dropped his voice.

“Broadus. You know him, don’t you. I checked your file, you were both at the same corporation before you came here.”

“Yeah, man, I knew him,” said Chane. His voice was barely audible, a broken man’s croak. His eyes moved constantly, roving the floor or the wall, unable to look directly at East.

“He shouldn’t have died,” said East. “I’m trying to do right by him. Who killed him?”

Finally, Chane met his gaze. “You did. They took him out because he was seen talking to you.” There were tears in his eyes.

East was stunned, the words sinking into his gut like a stone.

Chane continued, “So either arrest me or beat me, man, before you do the same to me.”

East turned away from the other man to lean heavily on the railing. Chane waited a moment more then shuffled away. The door closed behind him with a metallic click, and he was gone.